article · Global Change Biology
Competition between lianas and trees slows down forest recovery after disturbances, threatening the capacity of global carbon sinks. A global assessment analysed 651 vegetation samples covering 26,538 lianas and 82,802 trees across 556 worldwide locations to evaluate how climate and forest disturbance affect this relationship. Lianas consistently outperform trees in disturbed forests, under warmer temperatures, under lower precipitation, and in tropical lowlands. In areas where climate favours lianas, high competitive success can endure for decades after disturbance. This stalled succession is particularly acute where mean annual temperatures exceed 27.8 degrees Celsius, annual rainfall falls below 1614 mm, and climatic water deficit exceeds 829 mm. Consequently, degraded tropical forests under these specific climatic conditions are highly vulnerable and require prioritised intervention in restoration management.
Tropical forests are critical for absorbing atmospheric carbon and mitigating climate change. When climbing woody vines outcompete trees in disturbed areas, forest regrowth slows down significantly. Identifying the exact climatic and disturbance conditions that drive this dynamic helps conservation managers identify which forests are at the greatest risk of failing to recover naturally.
This research provides baseline environmental criteria that can guide forest restoration programmes, conservation planning, and carbon offset project design. Land managers, forestry operators, and environmental organisations can apply these climatic thresholds to prioritise sites requiring intensive weed or vine management. The findings represent early-stage ecological evidence intended to guide practical restoration strategies rather than an immediate commercial product.
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Growing evidence suggests that liana competition with trees is threatening the global carbon sink by slowing the recovery of forests following disturbance. A recent theory based on local and regional evidence further proposes that the competitive success of lianas over trees is driven by interactions between forest disturbance and climate. We present the first global assessment of liana-tree relative performance in response to forest disturbance and climate drivers. Using an unprecedented dataset, we analysed 651 vegetation samples representing 26,538 lianas and 82,802 trees from 556 unique locations worldwide, derived from 83 publications. Results show that lianas perform better relative to trees (increasing liana-to-tree ratio) when forests are disturbed, under warmer temperatures and lower precipitation and towards the tropical lowlands. We also found that lianas can be a critical factor hindering forest recovery in disturbed forests experiencing liana-favourable climates, as chronosequence data show that high competitive success of lianas over trees can persist for decades following disturbances, especially when the annual mean temperature exceeds 27.8°C, precipitation is less than 1614 mm and climatic water deficit is more than 829 mm. These findings reveal that degraded tropical forests with environmental conditions favouring lianas are disproportionately more vulnerable to liana dominance and thus can potentially stall succession, with important implications for the global carbon sink, and hence should be the highest priority to consider for restoration management.
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DOI: 10.1111/gcb.17140
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